From: Anant Pande <anantpande1984@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 3:55 PM
Subject: New animal discovered in Antarctica
To: IPRN IPRN <indian.polar@gmail.com>
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1704&cookieConsent=A
Scientists have announced the discovery of a tiny new animal in Antarctica's Victoria Land.
Electron microscope image of a new tardigrade.
It's a member of the tardigrade family. Also known as water bears or moss piglets, these are widespread and ancient microscopic animals, around half a millimetre long at most and generally found in moss and lichen, where they eat plant cells or small invertebrates.
Members of the group are found everywhere from high mountains and hot deserts to the deep ocean. Their success stems partly from the fact they're among the toughest creatures we know of, able to deal with extremes of cold, heat, pressure, dehydration, poison and radioactivity that would kill almost anything else – indeed, they are the only kind of animal that we know can survive in the vacuum of space.
Researchers led by Dr Roberto Guidetti from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy found the new creature while on a trip to Victoria Land. It was lurking on lake-shore mosses within the Crater Cirque, a natural bowl hollowed out by ancient glaciers.
Details of the new tardigrade.
Dr Sandra McInnes, a tardigrade specialist at the British Antarctic Survey, was enlisted to help classify the find. Examination under an electron microscope revealed various unusual features – for instance the red-orange creature has tiny pads or cushions behind its claws, and a distinctive pattern of hairs on its body – suggesting the scientists were dealing with a new species. We don't yet know what these features are for, or how they benefit the animal.
The researchers combined this traditional approach to taxonomy by examining the organism's physical form with modern molecular methods, sequencing its DNA and using the results to work out the tardigrade's evolutionary lineage. The genetic analysis confirmed that it's a new species within the genusMopsechiniscus – the researchers named in Mopsechiniscus franciscae.
Going back to the forebears
This is the furthest south a member of this genus has ever been found, extending its range into Antarctica for the first time. It was already known to be present in large swathes of South America – all the way down the Andean mountain chain to Tierra del Fuego – in Tasmania, and in South Georgia. But although it's found on several continents, it seems to need quite specialised kinds of habitat – it's common only in a few specific areas in each. 'It doesn't seem to travel well,' McInnes notes. 'It's quite an unusual genus to find a new member of, particularly in Antarctica where there are relatively few good tardigrade habitats.'
Anant PandeSenior Research Fellow 
Wildlife Institute of India Chandrabani, Dehradun- 248001
Ph no: +91-135-2640111-5 ext. 162 (ENVIS) Chandrabani, Dehradun - 248 001, Uttarakhand, India
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